A more hidden effect of this is the chilling effect of this on what would-be immigrants post on social media. E.g. should I remove a photo from the Women's March because it was seen by some as a protest against the current administration?
I actually went back and deleted all my “controversial” social media posts while I was applying for a visa transfer. This was even before this policy announcement. I don’t put it past vindicative people in the administration to causally check out social media posts while adjucating petitions
This has already happened in New Zealand. If you've ever publicly made controversial statements ("have ever publically made a racist statement" [1]), they can deny you a resident visa unless they arbitrarily decide it's OK.
You might think you're not a racist, but in the UK, racism law extends to criticizing Islam or even questioning aspects of it. So you better not be an outspoken atheist either.
Unless NZ is significantly different from most other countries, no one has a right to a resident visa (although some people might have a right to citizenship, such as by descent), so they can already arbitrarily determine whether or not to grant a resident visa.
Sure, but in practice, they don't seem to do that. I've heard of public complaints of denials and it's because the person doesn't actually meet the published criteria, not just "they seemed a bit scary".
It's not just would-be immigrants either. The same kind of social media checks are being used in some places for tenancy applications. Hand over your social media login details to some third party who gives a report to the landlord.
